[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: [APD] Getting shot of Nitrate Xperiment



Following on with my continued testing of how fast various cycling bacteria 
bottles actually take I thought this may interest people.


I bleached out the 17L test tank and all equipment (heater and internal 
filter) and substrate for 8 hours and thoroughly rinsed out and put in 15L 
of my soft tap water.

This is NH3/4 0, NO2 0, NO3 0, GH 1, KH 1, 26C at pH 6.8 with no chlorine or 
chloramine in it.

So I added a little sodium bicarbonate (0.5 tsp) and 2 calcium carbonate 
indigestion tablets (Sainsbury's Spearmint antacid tablets 500mg). Then I 
added 5 drops of Ammonia to give a reading of 1ppm. This I left to settle in 
for 8 hours before added the bottled bacteria.

I used 18ml of Safestart by TetraAqua 2 days ago.
(Bottle states add 5ml per 6L.)

I then had water with GH 5, KH 4, pH 7.6 at 26C.

I tested the water 15 hours later for NH3/4, NO2, NO3, pH with a API liquid 
test kit. I got zero NH3/4, 0 NO2 and 0 NO3, pH 7.6 with very cloudy water.

This is unusual. I've often used Safestart to cycle a tank and never had 
this cloud before.

I added another 1ppm of ammonia and retested 10 hours later. They were all 
back to zero again. Still cloudy water.

I added yet more ammonia to get 1ppm and left for 12 hours and once more the 
water parameters were back to zero again. But the water had cleared this time.

Looks like the Sucrose in the tablets had removed all the nitrate...?

The tablets packet ingredients state:
Calcium carbonate 500mg
Sucrose, Maize Starch, Calcium stearate, Spearmint flavour, Sodium 
saccharin. No amounts though.

I've used these cheap tablets from my local store for years now to add a bit 
of GH to my tanks.

So it looks like I have another fast cycled tank (within 12hours) and zero 
nitrates.


Oh and Happy New Year! :-)

-- 
Stuart Halliday
http://mytriops.com/
200 Million years in the making...
_______________________________________________
Aquatic-Plants mailing list
Aquatic-Plants at actwin_com
http://www.actwin.com/mailman/listinfo/aquatic-plants